


Just A Longing, Gone Without A Trace

by sapphire2309



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2013-07-19
Packaged: 2018-03-19 02:27:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3592917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphire2309/pseuds/sapphire2309
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had fallen in love with the darkness that killed her soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just A Longing, Gone Without A Trace

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sort of sequel to [In Narrow Side Streets](http://sapphire2309.livejournal.com/3825.html), but you don't need to have read that to read this.  
> Title from The One That Got Away by the Civil Wars (no, not the same as the Katy Perry song).  
> Written for Month of June over at Dreamwidth and the prompt "Stockholm Syndrome" on my [](http://hc-bingo.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://hc-bingo.livejournal.com/)**hc_bingo** card.

June was almost as good as dead.

She had fallen in love with the darkness that killed her soul.

Not because of Byron, much as she loved him. Not because it killed her soul in the worst way imaginable (slowly, steadily, till it was dust).

But because sometimes, when she was there, Byron was too. And that was enough reason to embrace the shadows forever.

She didn’t, because she had children and grandchildren. They were the only reason Mrs. Ellington still existed, up until she decided to donate Byron’s old suits.

Neal came, Mozzie followed, and they brought with them a whole host of problems and pleasant evenings that took up so much of her time that she almost forgot about the dark alleys.

Almost.

-:-

  
Once a month, when she knew Neal was out doing what he did and Mozzie wasn’t about to drop by, she would wear her most bedraggled clothes, mess up her hair, take off her makeup and set off for an alley of her choice.

She had become very, very good with a deck of cards. She conned. She hustled. And she never lost a single dollar.

Byron would be proud.

Sometimes, when she made a particularly good score and adrenaline was pulsing through her system so fast that she was almost floating, she thought she felt a hand at her waist and a voice in her ear saying, “I’m proud of you, darling.”

She turned around every time, expecting to see a face and a smile she’d memorized so well it never faded from her memory.  


-:-

  
Once a month became once a week, thrice a week, five times a week.

June thought she might just have Stockholm syndrome.

-:-

  
It didn’t take long for Neal to become suspicious.

He didn’t ask, because she never asked him anything about his various cons. He just waited for her to come back and looked her in the eyes to know that she was okay, and she was.

It could have been a con, that look she gave him that said nothing had happened, that she was _fine_ , but they didn’t con each other. Never had, never would.

-:-

  
The day June came back without that expression was the day Neal got held up at the office, buried in paperwork from a con- a _sting_ gone wrong.

She could have handled herself if Neal hadn’t been sitting at the end of the formal dining table every day, waiting for her, giving her a safety net.

She sat where he would have and waited for him to get home, before what happened destroyed her completely.

She sat and let herself break.  


-:-

  
“June,” he called, as he came in four hours later. Not like a question, but a lifeline. She clung to it.

He flicked a light switch and saw her.

He ran, as though there was a point to running in such a small space, and knelt in front of her, turning her face towards his.

Her eyes told him everything he needed to know.

“I saw him," she whispered. “Byron. He told me to go back.”

There was nothing Neal could do but hold her and whisper that it would get better, because it would never be okay. It couldn’t be okay.

June burnt her alley clothes the very next day.


End file.
